An Adobe Illustrator AI-generated image of a fantastical landscape reminiscent of a future dream destination framed by a gorgeous full rainbow and dotted with candy-like hills and hot-air balloons.

Overcoming emotional obstacles as a designer

Five strategies and creative tools that help you succeed past design blocks

1. Always look at what’s ahead of you, not behind

Never look back. So, your client didn’t like the five amazing design options you presented. You feel your creative juices are running on empty. It’s fine. Know that clients sometimes want to make it difficult and they’ll want you to keep on giving.

Take a deep breath, review what worked and what didn’t, learn from the experience, and then focus solely on the future.

Review your relationship with this particular client and decide on whether you’ll need and/or want to keep working with this client or not. If you’re in a job situation, then absolutely share your experience with your team. Collectively, discuss how to move forward. Focus on the positive side of the learnings and move on mentally.

Visualize your next destination, take a moment to describe it to yourself. It can be a real place or thing, or an entirely made up dream place, like the the place feature in the illustration above. Set that as your next goal.

2. Focus on research first, don’t fear the blank page